Past
by Krikr
Summary: Characters think about the past, about what lead them to where they are now. Will do various characters (and maybe all of them).
1. Roadhog

**No happy Dad:76 fic this time, I'm doing angst and memories. I hope you'll enjoy it nonetheless and I plan to do a few others about other characters.**

* * *

The sun was high in the sky without a cloud in sight. Mako had been walking for the past day, trying to find survivors of their assault on the Omnic base.

Everything was going well, they had reached the main reactor, he had set the charges and...

Well, it blew up.

Those damn robots had been tinkering with the reactor, probably intended to use it to create some weapon or another and now, by their fault, he could almost feel the radiations around him.

 _(He was responsible, he had miscalculated, he had caused the reactor to blow up_ ) He had planned everything perfectly except from the fact that those damn robots would have transformed their reactors into a giant bomb.

He had to shed most of his clothes since he began walking, having found next to no shelter from the sun. Still, if his vision wasn't playing tricks on him (and he briefly took his gas mask off to check, it wasn't), there was a crashed car in the distance. There even seemed to be someone at the wheel!

Mako accelerated, almost running toward the car. Maybe he could repair it, this person might even help him. They could try to contact other members of the ALF, regroup,...

The car was broken and the person wasn't moving. He approached them slowly.

"Do you hear me?" he asked.

No answer came. He asked louder. Still no answer.

He opened the driver's door and shook the man who simply fell to the ground, dead. Not unexpected but not what Mako wanted to happen. With a sigh, he closed the door and opened the hood.

There was no way for him to repair the car. And even if he had all the tools in the world, he couldn't have repaired the car. Still, it offered protection against the sun's rays so Mako crawled inside, closed the door and closed his eyes. He would rest until the sun would have gone down a little.

He woke up hours later, still alone in the car with the previous owner's corpse outside. It was really starting to smell but it didn't bother Mako as much as it should have. He probably became accustomed to it while he slept. He wearily woke up and exited the car. He didn't have anything to bury the man, so he just pushed him below the vehicle before resuming his walk.

After days of wandering through the ruins of the Omnium, of his former town, he had to find someone, anyone.  
Then, they would think about what to do.

...

"Hey, big guy! I want to ask you something!" shouted the young man that had made his way to Roadhog's side.

Roadhog had returned to Junkertown less than five minutes ago. With a frustrated sigh, he look at the hunched young man in front of him who was carrying a big bag. The bag wasn't too surprising, Junkrat, as the citizens of Junkertown knew him, always managed to find stuff to use and sell.

"What is it?" he asked

"Not here, I don't want too much people hearing us."

Roadhog led Junkrat to his makeshift house where he gestured him to sit while he closed the door.

"So, what do you want?" he asked again

"You take all kind of job, right?"

"What do you need me for?"

"Okay, you know the ruins of the Omnium, right? Well, about a week ago, I went there to see if there was anything valuable left."

"After fifteen years?"

"What? I'm really good at finding things. Anyway, there, I found something. I knew it would get me alot, so I came back here with it. I went to my usual guy and he told me he would see if he could find a buyer. I came back to him the following day, he said he didn't found anyone. But, the afternoon, some guy tried to rob and kill me!"

"And you think the two are related because?"

"Because he always find buyers quickly and the guy was only interested in it. Two days later, another guy tried to kill me for it!"

"So you want me to be your bodyguard?"

"Exactly! I hire you, we leave to find someone to get the thing and to show the world who we are."

Roadhog thought on it. Truthfully, the fact that Junkrat mentioned the Omnium at all had troubled him. He couldn't forget the day it blew up,neither the smell of the dead man in the car. All because of ( _him)_ those damn robots. Still, there was another thing that troubled him about the scavenger, his hair was already grey yet his voice was quite young.

"How old are you?"

"Twenty, why?"

He scoffed. So young. His new employer would be almost twenty years younger than him. Which meant he had only been five when _(he_ ) the robots destroyed everything. Only five...

"Sure, I can be your bodyguard."

"Excellent!" Junkrat took out a piece of paper and a pen, "But we've got to do a contract now. So, _'I, Jamison Fawkes, hire'_ " he paused. "What's your real name?"

"Mako Rutledge."

"' _Mako Rutledge as guard of my personal integrity until the time at which I will decide to part of the belongings aquired into the former Australian Omnium. At which point Mako Rutledge will be granted'_... What do you think of fifty-fifty?"

"Seems fair."

"'... _half of the profit that will come from the selling of those belongings.'_ And there, I only need you to sign here."

Both of them signed the contract.

"And... done. Now, let's leave."

"Understood. Sir." Mako guessed that, if he was officialy hired as Junkrat's bodyguard, he may have to adresse him as such.

"No need for 'Sir' Just call me..."

...

The jolt as the elevator reached its destination pulled Roadhog from his thoughts about the past.

"Junkrat, I still don't think this is a good idea." he mumbled through his mask

"Come on, big guy, this suit contacted us to offer us a job. A suit wants to offer us a job. It's at least going to be better than most of our plans. Plus, he contacted us himself, that's gotta be important."

Roadhog didn't answer when Junkrat knocked, still thinking about the day the robots ( _he_ , said the same voice for the past twenty years) destroyed their home.


	2. Widowmaker

**Second chapter, this time, Widowmaker! Now, while I personally believe getting "Amélie" back exactly as she were before brainwashing is impossible (Talon erased her) and that, if she's ever freed from their control, Widowmaker would create herself a new identity, I still can toy with the idea of getting Amélie back.**

 **Also, I think her lower legs are artificial limbs, but i'm not sure about that.**

* * *

A barred window, a lightbulb encrusted into the ceiling, no bedsheets or mat, just a sleeping bag that was fixed to the bed, a toilet in a corner. The room was spartan, with every thing that was (or more accurately, wasn't) there a reminder of what she had done.

No, of what _Widowmaker_ had done, not her.

But, looking at her pale hands (they weren't blue anymore, but they would never be like they were before), she could still see some of the people Widowmaker had killed, that Omnic preacher, that woman, all those people ... And above all, she could see his face as if it had been yesterday.

Gérard.

Her husband. Her love. She had killed him.

She had killed her own husband.

The silence in the room left her alone with her thoughts. She would have been ready to talk to just about anyone if only to stop thinking about what she had done.

That's when she faintly heard people talking outside her room.

"...shouldn't talk to her now, Lena. Neither should you, Zenyatta."

"I understand, doctor Ziegler." said a robotic voice

"Me too." she recognized that voice

The door opened and a blond woman entered. She also came to visit her the day before and the previous one.

"Good morning, how are you today?"

"Fine."

She wasn't buying it.

"Really?"

"I just." she tried to not look at the doctor "I miss my legs." she said, swinging the metal limbs, feeling their coldness when they touched her palms.

She danced, once. She could remember being on stage. Not a really big one, mind you. While she was talented and loved dancing, she hadn't been _that_ famous. Still, she could clearly remember dancing on the scene, people applauding, her bowing to thank them and how happy she felt. How she had been asked for a few autographs when she exited the theater.

But she would never be able to do that again.

She felt more than she saw the doctor sitting beside her.

"I think I understand. You can't imagine how hard it was to convince Genji that not everything was over after the operation. I tried my best."

"Did it work?" she vaguely recalled something about someone named Genji from before she had been ... from before everything.

The doctor had a faint smile.

"Not quite as well as I had expected. I'm no therapist and never before had so much needed to be replaced. He was fine as long as he could focus on a single objective, but when he had reached it, well, he was left alone with his thoughts. Anyway, we're not here to talk about my previous patients, so anything else on your mind?"

She knew what thoughts had prevented her to sleep for the past days, so she talked.

"I killed all those people."

The doctor sighed.

"We talked about it yesterday, there was nothing you could do."

"But I did it! And if I didn't, then who's to say I'm not whoever they made me anymore? Who am I?"

She was breaking down and was crying when she finished her sentence.

Mercy didn't know what to do. While some of her patients had to be reassured after an operation, Amélie was a unique case and she was at loss of what to do. Still, words might help.

"We inspected what we found in the base. It was an extremely sofisticated equipment, it's a miracle we managed to bring you back, Amélie."

She had to keep saying her name, to remind her of who she was.

"They suppresed you! You couldn't do anything about it. You're here today because, with our help, you broke what they did."

"But, then why couldn't I break away when they made me kill those people? When they made me kill my own husband! I couldn't break away then, why did you save me? Why someone so weak as I?"

She could still remember most of the faces of her victims, but she could also never forget how alive she had felt then, how she couldn't wait to kill again, just to feel alive once more. That couldn't have been her, if it was, she was a monster.

Angela carefully chose her next words. What she would say next would have a profound immact on the woman's mind and on whether she would want to become Amélie again or not.

"We saved you because whoever you were or want to be now, you were someone who was captured and forced to do horrible things against your will. And we could not let someone suffer any longer than it would take to free you. And whoever you want to be after that, if you want to be Amêlie again, if you don't think you can be her and want to be someone else, we'll help you. Because as long as you're not that assassin anymore, we'll let you be whoever you want. So, now the question is: who do you want to be?"

She thought about it.

It was obvious that, whatever would happen next, she would have to live with what she had been forced to do, ignoring it was impossible and it would always be part of who she was.

She thought back on those few days after she had been rescued by Gérard and the rest of Overwatch, how happy she was to be with him again. She had talked to the rest of the rescue team, to get to know her rescuers. She remembered who was that Genji now. Jack and Reinhardt (as they had insisted that she call them by their first name) had been very kind people. They rescued her twice now, the least she could do was to be herself again.

"I think ... I think ... Being Amélie again, being me again, is what I want."

Angela smiled.

"That's wonderful, Amelie. I think that we'll transfer you to a new room tomorrow. Do you think that you can talk to an Omnic?"

An Omnic. Like that preacher she had killed. He only wanted peace and she... No, she had been forced to do so. She could talk to one.

"I think. Why?"

"Because an Omnic joined us and he is very kind. I think talkibg to him would help you very much."

"Then I'll do it."

"Great. I have to go now, there's much to prepare. See you tomorrow, Amélie."

"Good bye, Angela."


	3. Tracer

**Let's try Tracer!**

 **Also, I'll be on holiday till the 22 august. I'll try to post stuff, but there's a high chance I won't be able to (shitty village with no internet) or that it'll be shorter than usual.**

* * *

"Ma'am, everything is ready."

The group of technicians who were working on her jet had finally finished and they were now retreating out of the hangar.

Lena got up from her chair and began to walk toward the door of the break room when a gorilla walked toward her.

"Lena, we finished installing the Slipstream device on your jet. We also added a button to activate it for you. When pressed, it should teleport the jet exactly one kilometer away in the exact direction it is turned toward."

They probably could have calibrated it to teleport the plane further away, but for the first test of the device on real conditions, the science team (whose Winston would be an official member of once he got his diploma, for now he was merely an assisstant) decided to start small.

"Don't worry Winston, I've read the instructions you guys gave me. I won't point it toward the ground when pressing the big red button. Is it a big red button?"

"No." chuckled the aspiring scientist, "it's not particularly big and it's green."

"Too bad."

"Yes. Good luck, Lena."

She didn't need luck at that point, the tests the device had passed were so diverse and numerous that testing it on a real plane was only a formality. Still, she was very proud to have been chosen as the one who would pilot the first teleporting jet fighter in the world.

Contrasting with the importance of the situation, the jet didn't look different than usual, it's sleek form waiting for her in the hangar. There were still a few scientists (that Winston rushed to), but they were consulting their documents.

"Have fun, Lena!" shouted Winston when she climbed into the jet. From atop the catwalk that coursed along the hangar's wall, she could see dr Zieger, Morrison, Reyes, Whilehlm and Amari waving at her. She waived back and closed the cockpit. She nervously adjusted her glasses. While the test would be a formality, the importance of the event still stressed her. her radio chimed in:

" _Ground control to Test jet, are you recieving us?"_

"Test jet to Ground Control, loud and clear." she answered as she started the engines and the plane moved toward the runway

 _"Perfect. You know your flight plan, right?"_

"Reach 1 500 meters above base, fly around a bit until the jet is horizontal and facing West-North-West, then activate the Slipstream device." she recited

" _Great, good luck."_

Taking off was done as usual, like every time she flew, she felt pushed against her seat and, like every time she flew, she was overjoyed to finally be in the air again, almost forgetting about the device in the plane. This was a very important text, she couldn't kid around like she would do normally.

Reaching the altitude set was quite easy, in fact, she had to be careful to not end up too high. Then, there was the orientation which took a little longer since she wanted to be on top of the base when reaching it. All in all, it took her five minutes.

She was East-South-East of the base and a few kilometers away from it when the radio came to life again.

" _Ground control to Test Jet, you're in position. At zero, you will activate the Slipstream device."_

"Understood."

She was ready.

" _Three."_

She was ready, it was a simple mission. Press the button, then return to base and be congratulated for testing the first teleporting plane ever.

" _Two."_

She had read and re-read her instructions numerous times, she knew exactly what to do.

" _One."_

She briefly wondered what it would feel like when teleporting.

" _Zero."_

She pressed the green button.

There was an explosion. Was it supposed to sound like that? There was a flash, a rush and when she could clearly see again, she knew something had gone horribly, terribly, wrong.

The jet wasn't supposed to be broken, its parts floating around her. She wasn't supposed to be able to stand up and turn around to look at the rest of the floating wreckage. Everything around her wasn't supposed to be white.

Before she could completely turn around to look at the engine and at the device, there was another rush of air and she was a meter or so above grass.

She landed without problem.

The grass around the base wasn't supposed to be so yellow. She couldn't see the base anywhere around her.

"Where am I?" she shouted.

She was alone in the middle of a grassy plain without anything else than the grass in sight.

She took her helmet off. Wherever she was, she didn't need it anymore. She started to look at the wreckage of what was her plane.

Plastic, metal, a lot of electronic components. And the sensation that whatever was behind her pulsed with a strange, blue light.

She didn't want to turn around and face that thing.

Before she could muster the courage to do so, there was another rush of air accompanied by a flash.

She couldn't see anything. Everything was dark. From what she could hear and feel told her she was in a cave.

"What's happening to me?!" she shouted

Finally, she turned toward the device. It was pulsing with a blue light. With another pulse (she and the device didn't move, everything around them did,) she was in the hangar where she had been just a moment ago. The hangar was empty, save for a bored man in a chair, reading some sort of book.

"Hello. Where's everyone?" she asked him

The man jolted from his chair, mouth hanging open looking at her and the device.

"You're ... you're that chick that died a while back!"

"What?"

That's when she saw it, there was a picture of her against a wall, with a "Rest in peace" paper under it.

She stared t it in disbelief while the man shouted something along the lines of "everyone, come here!".

Just when she was about to ask what the hell happened and when she heard the footsteps of the man's friends. There was another pulse.

This time, she didn't really end up anywhere. Everything was white-grey. The very few remains of the plane were floating, as was the device. She could walk, although she didn't see or feel any ground below her feet. Tentatively, she touched the _thing._

Another pulse.

She was in the same hangar, but now on the catwalk. The man from before and his friends were discussing something.

"Hey! I'm here!" she shouted at them

They dropped everything (literally, she saw one of the women drop her cup of coffee. It shattered on the ground).

"Oxton! Are you all right? Someone go get Winston!"shouted someone

"Yes. I'm a bit afraid, but not hurt? What happened?"

"There was an explosion and both you and the plane disappeared. It was two weeks ago." explained a woman

Two weeks. Two. Weeks. For her it had been less than five minutes.

She fell against the wall.

She had been thought dead. It had been two weeks.

"Lena!" shouted a familiar voice

"Winston!" she shouted back, running toward her friend and hugging him.

"Lena, what happened to you?"

"The device blew up and it teleported me somewhere. There was a plain, then a cave, then a white void and then I'm here." she started to cry "God, Winston, help me please. I don't want to leave again."

"You're here now. So stay with us. Do you have any idea what the device did?"

She knew him, he would be glad about seeing her again when he would be certain she wouldn't leave, like when he hadn't cheered when his first test of the Tesla cannon was passed, only when it had passed all the tests and proved to be reliable.

"No, I don't. Sorry."

"Lena, why are you blue?"

"Oh gosh, Winston, you can't just go around asking people why they're..." she was indeed glowing blue, the same blue the device pulsed. "No! i'm going to disappear again! Help me, please!"

Before he could answer, she was gone.

She appeared in an old house, made entirely in wood, but she didn't care. She vaguely heard someone shouting about a demon appearing in their house. She didn't care. Another pulse and she was in the middle of a city she never saw. The only thing that caught her attention there was the wheeled car on the road.

Maybe she could control it.

She tried to focus on the hangar, where Winston was. Where she had seen the rest of her friends for the last time.

There was another pulse.

The hangar was in ruins. Half of its roof had fallen and moss was covering the walls. Her friends weren't there, so she didn't really care.

That wasn't it. She focused again, on the hangar, on the face she had seen there.

Another pulse.

The hangar was clean and Winston was sitting in a chair in front of a desk, tools in front of him.

"Winston!" she shouted at him. he turned toward her and she saw the dark circles under his eyes.

"Lena, you're here. Good, I've been working on something since you left the device here." he gave her a harness with a strange cylindrical device on it. She put it on.

"What? But, isn't it the thing that teleported me? How can I do it without it?"

"Apparently you were near enough that it gave you this power too. Otherwise you wouldn't be able to control where you end up. How does the harness feel?"

"Nothing particular. What is it supposed to do?"

"It's supposed to keep you in sync with normal time. prevent you from teleporting randomly somewhere somewhen. But since you still look like a ghost, it probably wasn't successful."

She leaned against his table.

"What do you want me to do?"

"Stay here and let me try to correct it."

to her surprise, she didn't disappear then. So she stayed by her friend's side for a few hours, letting him try to help her. Unfortunately, when she felt another pulse coming, she couldn't do anything to prevent herself from teleporting away.

And appeared in the middle of a desert. This time, despite her numerous tries, she didn't return to the lab. She could only wander through the sand, climbing dune after dune. She didn't know where or when she was and it was only while she walked that it finally dawned on her.

She might not be able to leave this desert anymore.

If she had to wait for another pulse, she could die of thirst before.

She didn't know where the nearest human was. And she was alone in a desert at the mercy of a power she couldn't control or understand.

Maybe, decades after her death, someone would find her bones and wonder how a human arrived in the desert when there was no vehicle around.

No, she would return to her friends.

She tried to focus again, on the lab where Winston was doing everything he could to help her.

She couldn't let him down. She focused again. Still nothing.

She couldn't fail now. She tried again and felt the pulse that was becoming familiar to her.

She was in the hangar again, judging by the darkness she could see through the windows. It was either very late or very, very early.

The desk covered in tools was now an almost complete lab. Winston was still working on something.

"Lena, you're here." He was too tired to be exited, "Put this one on, please." he gave her another harness similar to her own.

She put the new one on.

And everything felt more real. Like she hadn't really been standing on the concrete floor of the cold hangar until now. Winston's eyes widened.

"It worked! It worked! You look real again!"

"Thank you Winston, thank you so much." she hugged him again.

Only to almost fall under his weight.

"Sorry. I've been working non-stop for three months and barely slept. We'll party in the morning, okay."

"Got it."

She carried him to his chair. That would do for now.

She would wait until the morning to shout everyone awake, to tell them she was back, how happy she was.


	4. Genji and Hanzo

**I'm trying a different style this time, so I want your opinion on if it was good or not**.

* * *

Two brothers were born in a wealthy and influencial family.

For as long as they could remember, they had always been brothers.

Both were taught that family was more important that anything and that going against one's family was one of the vilest things one could do.

To the elder's delight, the older brother learned well the lesson.

They were also told the clan's stories by their father, among those the tale of the two dragons which explained by whom the clan was founded.

While both of them were told the story was merely a legend, the youger brother loved it nonetheless.

Both were taught by preceptors the knowledge that would be needed in their live, among other things.

Whereas the older brother made the elders proud, the younger did not. Both had potential, that was certain, but it also was that the younger didn't have the same willingness to prove himself that his brother possessed.

Thus, when they were told that the older brother would be the one to succeed his father, none was surprised.

As they grew up came the lessons on how to use a warrior's weapons, how to hide oneself in the shadows and how to strike at an enemy's weaknesses, ...

As time went on, it became clear that the younger brother did not want to be a part of his family's empire and that he would rather spend his youth among brief pleasures than the rest of what he had been taught and that he considered his proficiency of the sword enough.

Years passed, the older brother striving to uphold the family's honor and to make his elders proud of him while the yougest wasted his youth among ephemeral pleasures, until the older one was told by his eldes that his brother's shameful conduct could be beared no longer and that, if he didn't change it, it would be the older son's duty to prevent him from bringing further shame to the family.

Despite his brother's warning, the younger son would not change his conduct. It was, he said, his way to protest against their family's activities.

Eventually, on that fateful day, the brother struck his brother to preserve the family's honor.

This day changed both of them.

The younger brother had miracukously survived. Maybe it was that he was stronger than everyone thought, maybe it was that, at the last moment, the older brother refused to strike his sibling down. But the younger brother survived the battle and was rescued by a group of heroes who saved his endangered life.

While he did survive, the younger brother was forever changed.

Gone were his looks he was so proud of before, gone were those happier days were they had allowed him to charm a number of women. Merely exposing his bruised and hurt flesh to the wind was painful and the sight would doubtlessly scare away everyone.

With nothing left to live for, the younger brother joined the heroes and, not desiring to confront the truth of he had become, he dedicated his entire self to bringing down his former family.

Still, after that was accomplished and when his family's empire was but a shadow of itself, he could not escape the truth of what had happened to him, of who he had become, any longer and he left the group of heroes he had come to consider like a second family, for the layers he was forced to wear at all moments to live made of him an outcast among normal people.

Trying to find a place where he would be accepted for what he was now, the younger brother traveled for a long time, his mind always telling him he didn't belong anywhere.

By luck, during his travels, the younger brother met a monk who felt the disquiet in his soul and offered his help. While the younger brother refused at first, the monk would not leave him until he was at piece with himself and he finally accepted the monk's help.

The younger brother was invited by the monk to the temple where he and his order meditated on the universe and those who inhabit it.

In their temple, and with the monk's help, the younger brother learned that one's soul was all that matteed to the universe, and not from where or who it came from.

After years, the younger brother felt ready to return to the heroes he had considered family. The monk, desiring to see in person the heroes his student told him so much good about, came with him and advised him that he should try to meet his brother again and make peace with him, as the final step that would make him no longer held back by what had happened.

That fateful day had also changed the older brother.

Family came first and not respecting that was the height of dishonor, that was what he had always been taught.

But he had been asked to kill his brother by his elder. They had asked him to kill his family and he had done it.

What kind of man did that make him? What kind of men did it made the elders? The older brother asked himself.

Dishonorable ones. Men who sacrificed their family for power.

The older brother put his blade away, swearing to not use it anymore, took his bow and left the clan overnight, in search of his lost honor and maybe redemption for what he had done.

Killing those who had ordered the death of his brother was an obvious thing to do, as was honoring his brother every year at the spot where he had killed him.

Until he was, one year, interrupted by another assassin sent to kill him.

As if a mere assassin would be enough.

Still, his assassin was better than the other and their fight hzd earned him his respect.

Until he began to talk about his younger brother as if he knew him.

The younger brother tookhis mask off.

The older brother didn't know what to think.

The younger brother told the older one that he had forgiven him.

The older brother didn't believe it.


	5. Winston

He hadn't heard anything for the past thirty minutes, so it was probably safe to leave the room.

Tentatively, Winston opened the door of the room he had found shelter in, peered into the hallway and, having not seen anyone alive, exited the room.

The day had begun like every other: with an alarm waking him up at 0700 hour, followed by breakfast (none of the gorillas were allowed into Horizon's small garden) after which he had heped the scientists with their experiment of the day, which amounted to simplytesting a new spacesuit.

After an hour floating into space, following the instructions given by the scientists observing him, he had returned to his quarters. On his way, he had seen his "brothers".

Out of the hundred of gorillas that were on the station as test subjects, the gene therapy to give them intelligence had worked on about a dozen of them. Those were filling various roles into the station: two or three of them were janitors, one worked at the cafeteria, the rest were helping the scientists in various experiments with rotations on every thursday. These tasks had two objectives: first, observing how uplifted gorillas interacted with humans, observing how the therapy worked, the second was to try and see if it was possible to integrate them into society. After the Omnic Crisis, there had been a sharp decline in Omnic production and so there had been attempt at finding alternative ways to have intelligent workers without requiring robot or human labor.

As such, even the gorillas on which the therapy failed could still prove useful, if only at the most basic jobs.

Still, there would be a lot of time before they could walk on Earth or Mars, if the project to colonize the red planet was ever put into motion.

So, even if Winston sometiles felt the fact that he was a mere test subject weight too much on him, he always took satisfaction into the fact that it was to help science and allow to, maybe one day, humanity to leave the solar system.

On some days, he could hear his brethren angrily shouting from where they were held.

The gene therapy didn't simply give them intelligence, it also allowed them to quell their anger, to remain calm even if the task at hand proved frustrating. So the gorillas that were shouting and trying to break free were angry apes who didn't understand why some of them were more intelligents and treated better. The first time one of the uplifted gorillas had entere the holding zone to feed theother, he had been almost mauled to death by his jealous cousins before being saved by the security team. Since then, contact between the uplifted gorillas and the other had been prohibited.

When he had entered his room, Dr Clarke had been waiting for him. Dr Clarke was one of the scientists Winston interacted with the most. The old man had seemed agitated.

"Ha, Winston. I hope your morning went well." Greeted the scientist

"It did, Doctor. Can I help you?"

"Yes. That's why I'm here in fact. Do you know where Harold is? I need him and I can't find him."

"Did you ask the receptionist?"

"Yes. He says he didn't see him since breakfast. I know he comes to visit you around this hour, can I wait for him with you?"

"If you wish."

Despite Winston's tries to engage conversation, Dr. Clarke had been too preoccupied for small talk and was reluctant to tell his reason for wanting to see Harold.

After two or three uncomfortable minutes, Winston's father entered the room.

"Hello Winston, Daniel."

"Harold! We need your help, quickly! The savage ones have been unnaturally calm since 0645, we didn't think anything of it, but it's becoming worrying, since it's by now the time whenre they should shout for food, but nothing."

"Fine," answered Harold with a sigh, "I'll come with you to have a look."

"Thank you, Harold. Don't worry Winston. It shouldn't take more than ten minutes."

His father was back in six, running into his room, on the verge of panic.

"Winston, we're leaving. Now."

He could hear the faints shout of his brethren becoming stronger and stronger by the second.

He grabbed his glasses and followed Harold in the hallway, following the "Hangar V" signs.

"What happened?" asked the curious gorilla

"They were more intelligent than we gave them credit for. They didn't move, even after we used the loudspeakers to wake them up, so we had to do it manually. A dozen of us went into their area. Some were armed, some just had cattle prod, to make them move since their immobility was worrying. And then they acted. In less than five seconds, the dozen of guys were dead and they rushed toward the exit. Now they're everywhere, they're angry, and they want us all dead. So we're leaving."

There was no doubt about their next course of actions. Winston grabbed his glasses and they ran, following the signs leading toward Hangar V.

The roars were coming from everywhere and they more than once narrowly avoided fighting.

They were about eighty meters away from the hangar's door when they were ambushed by two of Winston brethren, one jumping on each. Winston managed to knock his out, but turned just in time to see his father hadn't been so lucky.

That had been when he had been punched into the room he had been hiding in for the past thirty-five minutes.

Now, he was watching Harold Winston, his father. Dead. His face was barely recognizable, there was very little blood, most of the damage been blunt. A few feets away from him, his glasses. Miraculously intacts, having fallen off the moment he had been jumped on.

Winston picked them up and put them on. He had lost his own pair during the fight. He then picked up his father, carried him to the room where he had hidden for the past half-hour, and gently put him on one of the two beds that were there. That was the only thing he could do. He had to leave.

Thankfully, the hangar bay was empty and hadn't suffered a lot of damage. Unfortunately, it still meant he would have a lot of work to do before leaving. He would have to focus only on the task at hand.

He closed the hangar door, to prevent any interruption by his brethren, and set to work. This hangar had been mostly for maintenance of the base's two rockets, as such, there were many spare parts in the closets against the walls. There was even a manual and, while it proved difficult, the fact that the two rockets were damaged in the same places helped him a great deal.

It took him half a day to repair the least damaged rocket. Before leaving, there was one thing he needed to do.

He turned the radio on.

"Horizon Lunar colony to Earth, are you reveiving me?"

"Earth recieving you, but not very well. What happened? We recieved messages about an outbreak twelve hours zgo, and nothing since. Does it means the situation had just returned under control? What are your losse?"

"I don't have the situation under control and I'm the only survivor."

There was a silence before whoever was behind the radio on Earth talked.

"My apologies. Who are you?"

"I'm Winston. I'm one of the successful test subjects. The savage kiled everyone and I'm sending this message to tell you I've managed to reoair a rocket, that I'm taking off in ten minutes and that, according to my calculations, I'll land in the Mediterranean, neqr the coast of Morocco. End of transmission"

Only after the rocket had taken off did he allow despair and grief to swallow him.


	6. Jesse

It had been a relatively peaceful day. Jesse and three other guys had to take one of the cars to deliver crates of guns to one of their clients, take the money and come back. Not difficult, not too long (they were back three hours after leaving) and the weapons they had delivered had been exchanged for quite a lot of money.

They were even back for lunch.

As Andrew drove the car in front of the door of their base, they were surprised by the absence of anybody to open the door.

"Something's wrong." muttered Andrew,

"Nope, they're probably eating and too preoccupied by their food to care about us." answered Jesse.

With a sigh, Andrew got out of the car and walked into the base, opened the door and got back into the car.

"I didn't see anybody or heard anything." he muttered

"Think they're drunk again?"

"Probably."

The few meters were driven in silence, as Andrew clearly became more and more preocuppied by the absence of sound in the base. Two or three meters before stopping, he looked into the rear-view mirror and drove backward.

"Sir?" asked Tim, next to him

"Did you look at the wall? There's bullet impacts. Too many to just be those dumb fuck firing at it out of boredom. There was an attack. We're leaving, we drive away a bit and I'll call David to ask what happened."

The rest of the group didn't say a word. Andrew was the oldest of them and while his bouts of paranoïa were a pain in the ass to deal with, they sometimes were more than just crazy ramblings.

"And IF that's true, why are we leaving instead of looking for survivors or just clues as to what happened?" Asked Tim.

"There's no sound, no one's going through the crates and they're not empty, and above all, no blood or corpse. This stink of an ambush."

Without another word or sound, they reached the door again.

"So, who wants to get out and open it?"

Nobody answered, after Andrew's explanations, no one wanted to get out of the car. After a few seconds, Michael, who had been asleep for most of the travel back and had been on the verge of nodding off again since he woke up, mumbled something about the others being coward and opened his door.

Just when he was about to hit the button that would have opened the door, he fell, hit by something the others didn't see.

Tim grabbed his rifle and emptied its clip in a few seconds, hoping that a lucky shot would neutralize whoever had shot Mike.

"Shit shit shit!" he shouted

"Calm down, kid. If they wanted us dead they'd..."

Andrew never finished his sentence as Tim opened his door, ran toward the exit, and was out of the base in two seconds. The last two men inside the car didn't heared a few more shots, some fired from Tim's rifle, and then nothing.

Jesse knew that remaining in the car wasn't the solution, but he had also seen and heard what had happened to the last two who left it. The teenager looked at his senior.

"So, what do we do now, Sir?"

"Like I tried to say to Tim before that retard got himself killed, if they wanted us dead they'd have just fired a rocket at the car or something. So our best chance is to get out of the car and surrender. Sorry, kid. Should've seen that one coming."

Without another word, Andrew got out and slowly extended his hands, to show to whoever observed them that his shotgun was in his hands, dropped it, kneeled to the ground and put his hands behind his head.

Someone applauded and, seconds after, a man walked out from behind the crates he had been and approached Andrew.

"I have to say, you're probably one of the smartest of your gang." the man told Andrew

Now that he was closer, Jesse could see the man was a latino with a beanie wearing something that looked like a mix between a military uniform and civilian clothing. Two shotguns were holstered at his sides.

"I know when to fold my cards." answered Jesse's senior

Jesse was thinking. To have approached them like that, that latino must have been the chef of their attackers. So, the guns of his goons were most probably all pointed toward the senior gang member who was in hand's reach of their chief's throat. Which meant that he could probably make a break for the exit door without getting shot. Once outside, he would have the advantage of knowing the area and could slip away. Only downside was that he would leave Andrew at their mercy, but better him than Jesse.

Two second after his decision, Jesse was outside the car and halfway toward the door. Another two seconds after, his hand touched the stone and he felt a hand grab his collar and pull him. Another second and he was on the ground. He grabbed his revolver and shot, only for the other hand of his attacker to push his arm away and the shot to hit the ceilling. He felt a sting and fell asleep.

He woke up in a room, shackled yo a chair in front of a table. With no one to talk to or anything to do other than to stare at the walls, timed passed slowly until he heard footsteps, shortly followed by the latino, still with his beanie, entering the room and standing in front of him without saying a single word.

After thirty second of golding the man's gaze. Jesses finally spoke.

"What do you want?"

"Everything I'll ask for. Every name, every operations you're been a part of, the locations of all your bases or your partners', the names and faces of everyone you met or even saw... Every. Single. Thing."

"And why would I tell you?"

"Because you're in so much shit that you're starting to look like a public toilet to me."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Let's look at your charges then, shall we? Unauthorized possession of a firearm, Selling without a license, Smuggling illegal weapons into the United States, Selling Illegal weapons, Knowingly associating yourself with known criminals, Complicity in numerous murders, Murder, Racketting, Protecting criminals and Refusing to help the law enforcment and knowingly trying to end the life of an Ovewatch agent."

The last one shook him. The guy in front of him was an Overwatch agent? As soon as he relarked the patches with the organization's emblem on the latino's shoulder, he kicked himself for not seeing them sooner.

"So you want me to snitch."

"Yes. If you don't, we'll still find everything, it'll just take a bit more time, and we'll had another case of willingly protecting criminals to your record."

"I won't snitch."

"Really? Let me tell you what happen if you don't: you'll go to prison and won't leave until you're dead. If somehow you get out earlier, no one will wants to hire you. No one working legally will want to associate themselves with a former smuggler and killer, and no one working iegally will want to hire someone so sloppy he got caught. You won't find a job ever and you're going to die alone in the streets. And, Jesse McCree, I've read your dossier. A month ago you spent the week-end with your family and a few friends. We're going to have to investigate them too, to see if they were the one who introduced you to the Deadlock gang, imagine their reactions when they'll learn that you were a gang member? That you, their friend, their family, could sink so low... that'll break they heart. And then people may not want to hire them, since they were friends or related with such a criminal. Imagine the horror of their employers when they'll learn that..."

"Cut it!" shouted Jesse.

He knew the risks when he joined, and he knew there were some for his family and friends as well, but to hear the man talk about it like that.

"In short, getting judged will bring so much shit to everyone you were ever close to that you'll think God himself crapped on you and your family."

"And, if I help you?"

"Well, we'll forget about the 'attempt to kill a member of Overwatch' part. And if you're particulary helpful, we may be able to convince the judge to sentence you to community service."

"Communiry service? For being a member of Deadlock?" Jesse burst out laughing

"Of course it would be very special and dangerous community service and we'd be watching you 24/7 for years. But you wouldn't be in jail, nobody but us would know you were part of Deadlock and it would give you some good will and nice recommendations if you wanted another job after that. But I understand you don't want to snitch."

He had nothing but disdain for Overwatch, those dumb fucks who refused to see the world wouldn't become rainbows and sunshine even if they tried. He didn't want to be with them.

But if the price to avoid prison and not have his life ruined forever was to play boy scout for a few years, he would play nice.

"I'll tell you everything you want to know and I'll even help you track them down, Mr..."

"Reyes. Jesse, welcome to Blackwatch."

20 years later.

"Hey, Jesse, do you ever regret having joined us?"

"Not at all. I'd even say it's the best thing that ever happened to me."


End file.
